Beyond Meat’s stock collapses after debt deal

El Segundo-based company’s shares fall below $L They once traded at nearly $235.

- By LAURENCE DARMIENTO

BEYOND MEAT'S pea-based foods mimic the taste of beef, chicken and pork. Above, one of its burger patties.

(CAROLYN COLE Los Angeles Times)

What does it cost a company when it’s no longer in the zeitgeist? For stockholders in Beyond Meat, perhaps as muchas 99% of their money, if they bought at the top ofthe market.

Shares of the El Segundo maker of plant-based meats, an investors’ darling a few year ago, collapsed this week to less than $1 after the company wrapped up a deal to reduce its debt burden. The deal involves issuing up to 326 million new shares to the note holders.

The stock-diluting deal was spurred by declining sales at the company, which makes pea-based foods that mimic the taste of beef, chicken and pork.

It’s a stark reversal for Beyond Meat, whose products were in big demand early in the COVID-19 pandemic but are now less so as consumer tastes have shifted back to animal meats amid a surge of interest in protein.

“Animal meats are in the true cyclical fashion of consumer trends, having a moment that currently leaves less room for our products and brand,” founder and Chief Executive Ethan Brown told analysts during the company’s August conference call. “You've got these cultural moments that occur. And we happen to be on the other side of the particular moment.”